Aware
by idealskeptic
Summary: The bittersweetness of a brief and fading moment of transcendent beauty. Nothing in Finnick Odair or Annie Cresta's life was ever perfect. Not until they found each other and only when they were with each other did things seem right in their world. This is a story of when Finnick and Annie are aware, even though they know the moments will be fleeting.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own a bit of this. I'm just borrowing.

**Note: **I know there are a lot of Finnick and Annie "canon" stories, or stories giving them their backstory, but I wanted to write my own. For whatever its worth, this is it. I really hope you like what I did here! Tell me so, won't you? Whether you did or you didn't?

**AWARE **

a Japanese word meaning_ "the bittersweetness of a brief and fading moment of transcendent beauty"_

there is no English word for that definition

I can still smell the sex on my face when I get back to the Training Center. It's making me sick. Katrina's certain her husband will know if she has actual sex and restricts herself to oral sex. I'm sure he's paying for my time so I don't know what difference it makes. I don't care either. I just want to wash it off and go back to preparing my tribute to die. Or win. That's what I'm supposed to tell her.

It's a half hour before dawn, just about the time Chaff Thornton and Haymitch Abernathy usually go to sleep after a hard night's drinking, but they're both standing in the lobby of the Training Center when I walk in. They're not drinking and they don't look drunk. Something is wrong. I know this as they walk toward me.

Chaff calls me by my name and I start to shake because they always, without fail, call me Pretty Boy and only that. "It's Mags," he says bluntly.

I lean against the back of the closest chair, willing him not to say the two words I expect him to say - she's dead.

"She's not dead," he says, answering my prayers. "She had a stroke, Finnick. They took her to the hospital. Your district chaperone was going to tell you but we thought you'd rather hear it from us."

"If you want to hear it at all," Haymitch adds. "But it's true, so you have to. Your chaperone ran off before she said much else but Effie Trinket told me the protocol is for them to bring another victor to take her place. You got a preference? I'll tell Effie to get ahold of yours and pass the message."

Who do I want in the Capitol while Mags is in the hospital and kids are dying?

I don't know.

I want to go home.

The only time Mags has stayed home in the four years since I won and started mentoring, she asked Muscida to take her place. So I tell him Muscida should come, if she's willing.

Haymitch squeezes my shoulder. "I'll tell Effie. She'll take care of it."

"Your chaperone will get your kids to training," Chaff says, squeezing my other shoulder. "Haymitch's got to take his kids and Seeder'll take mine. Want me to come to the hospital with you? See her?"

I want to go home, that's what I want.

Or cry.

I could cry.

Mags wouldn't approve of either of those wishes, though, so I try and force myself to think of what she would say if she were here and telling me what to do. The very last thing she would allow me to do would be to abandon the tributes. I can see her later. My date for the night has to be cancelled, given that I'll be the only mentor until Muscida arrives. I have to be a mentor.

Chaff and Haymitch both nod in understanding when I say that, then they both offer to go see her with me later. Haymitch promises to have his district chaperone keep me posted on Mags' condition too. I never thought the two drunks from the outermost districts would be the only real friends I'd find in the ranks of the victors but they are.

We get on the elevator together and they both offer me sad looks and words of encouragement when I get off on the fourth floor.

I have time to shower but if I allow myself time to be alone, I'll fall apart. Mags always says if I let myself fall apart, it'll take ten times as long to put myself back together. So I wash my face with soap scented to smell like saltwater and stand by the windows in the common room, making sure Avoxes and attendants can see me while I wait for the tributes.

The boy, a seventeen year old volunteer named Reef Falkirk, comes out of his room and heads for the breakfast buffet right away. Mags was supposed to mentor him but I don't think he was happy with that arrangement, not knowing she was better for him than I would have been.

"Reef," I say, repeating his name again so my voice sounds stronger. "Mags had a stroke last night. She's not going to be able to mentor you. I've requested the Muscida come from back home and take her place. It's what Mags would have wanted."

He shoves half a pastry in his mouth and shrugs. "That's fine. I never thought mentors did much in this anyway. You still going to mentor the weeping willow?"

His stylist told me after the parade that he'd called her that but I didn't believe the blue-haired Capitol fool. Apparently I should have. Hitting him would be the best thing I could do, but I can't. "Don't be an ass," I mutter instead. "You never know when you might need her help."

He shrugs again and finishes off the pastry before turning back to the table.

"Did you see her, Reef?" I ask, because she should be out here eating something.

"I knocked on her door. She was weeping, so I'm not an ass, and she said she's not hungry but she'll come out in time to go to training."

I leave him to his food and go in search of my tribute.

Annie Cresta shouldn't be here. She's a Career and well-trained, but she's not cut out for this. She got top marks for her year in weapons back home. She can throw knives and spears and tridents better than anyone I've seen. She knows her plants and she knows how to hunt for food and water. What she can't do is the most important thing. She came in close to last in hand-to-hand combat and any type of weapons that involved being close enough to hit or be hit. She's not going to make it.

Maybe I should just let her weep.

That'd be letting her give up, though, and I could never face Mags again if I did that.

"Annie?" I call out, pushing her door open - because I don't want her to have the chance to say I can't come in. "Annie, don't you want breakfast?"

She curls against the headboard of her bed and shakes her head at me. "It'd look weak if I threw it up in front of the Gamemakers and other tributes, wouldn't it?"

I sit on the end of the bed, as far from her as possible, and nod once. "Yeah, it would. Then again, that'd be a strategy for some people."

She laughs hollowly. "I don't even have a strategy."

"Sure you do," I say with well-practiced confidence. "You'll get whatever weapons you can and you'll protect yourself with them. If you get knives and a spear, you just have to be willing to throw them at something besides the dummies back home. If you can do that, you'll get all the way."

"And if I can't do that?"

She's seventeen. She's never been naïve about this. I can't lie to her. "If you can't do that, you won't get to come home."

"I'm not even sure that'd be so bad," she sighs, "do you think?"

I bite the inside of my lip to keep myself together. "I don't know, Annie, I've only ever tried the one way. I should tell you, anyway, that Mags had a stroke last night. She's not going to be able to mentor Reef so Muscida is coming. I'll still be your mentor, so don't worry about that."

I didn't feel her move across the bed and I wasn't look at her so I don't see it. But she's beside me in the blink of an eye and she touches my shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Finnick," she murmurs.

She's comforting me?

We discuss that she's probably not coming home and she's comforting me because an old woman who got to live a pampered life, by District standards, as a victor for sixty years is going to survive a stroke?

I don't understand this girl.

She links her fingers through mine when I tell her I don't understand. "Anyone back home who takes the time to look can see how much you care for Mags," she says gently, "and how much she cares for you. That's why I'm sorry, because someone you care about is sick and you're suffering for it."

A mentor crying, sobbing, on a tribute is probably frowned on in the written and unwritten rulebooks. I can't help it though. No one, besides Mags, has ever understood me that way before. So I cry out of self-pity, I cry for the old woman who is my family, and I cry for the girl who probably won't be alive in another two weeks.

Annie's stronger in those moments than she's been since her name was pulled from the glass bowl in the sunbaked square in District Four.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

The rules are that mentors are allowed to watch the training either before or after the tributes have lunch but not both times. Half the day is meant for networking with possible sponsors. I go to watch training for the morning. I can't face the Capitol yet, so I go into the basement of the Training Center and slump into a chair beside Haymitch.

It earns me odd looks from Cashmere, Gloss, and Brutus but I don't care.

"How you holding up, Pretty Boy?" Haymitch asks as we both stare out the one-way glass that faces the floor where most of the tributes are tentatively trying to figure out what to do.

There's something comforting about the fact that he's gone back to the nickname and I mash my hands over my face to hide it. "I cried on my tribute before I brought her down here," I mutter under my breath. "I'd say I'm holding up just fine."

He coughs and slouches low in his chair, mirroring my position. "I'm sorry. I must be really drunk or I'm going deaf. I could swear you just said you cried on your tribute."

"Not one of my finer moments." I shouldn't have told him. I can see that now. Then again, he hasn't burst into laughter so there is a bright side.

"I wouldn't think so," he says in a low voice. "Which tribute is yours?" When I tell him it's Annie, he sighs. "She in love with you? That why she didn't smack you when you cried on her?"

I hadn't considered that. But I know the answer just the same. "No. At least I don't think she is. Back home she would cross the street if I was walking where she was. I didn't flirt with her either, before you ask. I don't flirt with anyone back home. Ever."

He holds up his hands. "I didn't say a word, Pretty Boy. And don't think I don't feel for you. I do. I know what you do here and I know what Mags means to you. Now I know that you're going to care about your tribute and it is going to hurt a thousand times worse when she dies. I don't envy you, I wouldn't want to be you, but I'm here if you need a friend."

The fact that Haymitch Abernathy has almost reduced me to tears is a sad fact in and of itself.

I mash my hands against my face again and lean forward. "Think like a mentor and try to forget it all matters, right?" The flask appearances in front of me and I take it, swallowing half of the foul liquid that must come from District Twelve. I choke and hand the flask back to him. "What is that?"

He caps it and pats me on the back. "Called white liquor now, but it used to be called white lightning. Can make you go blind."

I cough again and wipe the back of my hand over my mouth. "Good name."

He grunts in agreement. "Anyway, yeah, you got to think like a mentor and try to forget it all matters. It's the only way to get through this. They're called the Hunger Games, let them be games. Games don't mean as much as real life. Try to convince yourself of that." He pats my shoulder and gets to his feet, leaving me on my own.

I move to the front of the room to lean against the wall by the edge of the glass so I can see what my tribute is doing. I told her on the elevator ride down to focus on what her weakness are - physical conflict in close quarters. She's doing it to, practicing hand-to-hand combat with the instructor. She's too tentative. Some mentors would probably want her to stop so she wouldn't show weakness but I think it's more important that she spend the three days learning as much as she possibly can.

"Does she have any strengths?" Lyme asks, coming to stand beside me.

This is the hardest part of mentoring, harder even than selling a tribute to a sponsor. If I make her sound too strong, she'll seem like a threat and be killed as early as possible. If I make her seem too weak, she'll be left out of alliances and be killed fairly early. It's a delicate balance, one Mags usually handles for me. At least it's Lyme, though. I can talk to her better than I could have Cashmere or Enobaria.

"Distance weapons," I reply, keeping it both vague and specific - it's true that they're her strength but Lyme doesn't need to know I think she'll lose it if she has to throw a weapon at another human being. "Top marks in training for them, first in her group."

"Does she want in the Career Pack?"

I glance around, noticing Cashmere and Gloss whispering and gesturing toward both the District Four tributes. And I see the girl tribute from One watching Annie with obvious skepticism. The Career Pack might not be best for Annie, it might go against everything I'm guessing she cares about, but it's also her best shot at making it. "Can you sell Cashmere on it?"

"You've got a better chance at convincing Cashmere than I do. Brutus and I want your tributes. I'll tell Gloss and Cashmere both kids from Four are part of the pack or One is on their own. If you think your tributes want an alliance with mine that badly."

I lean my forehead against the glass and will Mags' spirit to speak to me, even though she's not dead. Knowing what she would say will guide me. "Muscida should be here this afternoon. Let's not make any threats until she's involved." It's a cop-out, no doubt, but I can't help it. "Okay?"

She nods. "Okay, Odair. We'll talk tomorrow morning. If you go see Mags tonight, give her my best?" And she's gone before I can respond.

When the morning session is over I go back to the fourth floor and shower, finally washing Katrina off my body. Then it's time to make someone care about Annie enough to buy her something if she survives the Cornucopia. Thankfully, mercifully, Muscida has arrived by the time I get out of the shower. I fill her in on what Lyme said and what I know about Reef. She's going to watch him for the afternoon so I'll be meeting people on my own.

It's alright. Sticking close to Mags is one thing but following Muscida would just raise suspicions more than they need to be.

My stylist left the usual loose white shirt - better to show of my tanned skin - with conveniently missing buttons and ridiculously tight pants - green this time, no doubt to match my eyes - so I get dressed and run my fingers through my wet hair. The upside of it all is that they trust me to dress myself and they've decided my hair looks better "wind blown" so I get to style it myself with my fingers. I hardly ever have to see anyone intent on dressing me anymore. I like it this way. Even if it is because the people who really matter just want to take my clothes off.

When I get to the garden party at President Snow's mansion, I make a beeline for Katrina. Her husband is one of the Gamemakers so he won't be around and I was told she would like my company until the Games officially begin. There aren't any rules banning families of Gamemakers from sponsoring tributes so I figure she's the best place to start trying to help Annie.

"You really like this girl," she says after I talk Annie up over the girls from One and Two. "Why?"

"She reminds me of you," I lie blatantly. I learned long ago that the more idiotic a lie sounds to me, the more the Capitol will buy it. I lean on the back of the stool she's perched on, neon colored feathers from her dress poking me, and sort of drape myself over her. "You worry about what your husband will think if he finds out what we do when we're not in public. You worry about whether the Avoxes in your building have enough soap so you won't smell them. You're a very kind, considerate person. Annie Cresta is that way too. Do you think it's high time someone like you came out of the arena a victor?"

Stroking egos works as well as bold-faced lies. It's obvious she bought every word I said, even the thinly veiled insult about the soap for the Avoxes. "Alright, Finnick," she purrs, leaning up to me, "you've convinced me. Call me when there's something I could sponsor that'd be useful for her."

I nuzzle my face into her neck, thankful I'm not between her legs again. "You promise, Katrina? I'd be very sad if you didn't follow through."

She makes a sort of purring sound again and sighs. "I won't let you down, Finnick. And I never break my word about the Hunger Games."


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

Mags pulls herself out from under the haze of whatever drugs they've given her and clutches my hand with all the strength she has. She's trying to say something.

I want to beg her not to die.

I don't know how to live, not without Mags guiding me.

It'd be selfish to beg her not to die, though, so I hold her hand and lean close in case I can catch the words she's trying to say.

The doctors told me her left side is partially paralyzed by the stroke. She should be able to rehabilitate that almost back to normal. They're more worried about her ability to speak.

Frustrated that I'm not understanding her, she settles on something else and uses the fingers of her right hand to trace letters on the palm of my hand.

P-R-O-U-D O-F Y-O-U

There's nothing for her to be proud of me about. That's what I'd say if she could tell me I was wrong, just like she always had. She can't, though, and it's a lot to spell out so I keep my self-doubt quietly locked away in my mind so it can eat only at me, not at her.

B-E G-O-O-D

It isn't that she thinks I'll be bad. She knows I think I am bad. She's telling me I'm wrong and that I need to remember I'm wrong, even when she's not around to tell me so.

"Mags," I sigh, pressing her hand against my face.

Since she can't trace letters on my palm as easily now, she writes her final words on my cheek.

L-O-V-E Y-O-U

I blink back tears and whisper that I love her too, more.

She smiles and shakes her head. And I know she noticed my tears because she spells out one final word, one that makes my battered spirit soar.

S-T-A-Y-I-N-G

"You better," I tell her thickly. It's time to go back to the Training Center to help Annie prepare for her interview with Caesar. I don't want to go, but I can't let Mags down. I stand up and lean over her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

She's asleep before I leave the room.

Annie greets me by asking how Mags is.

I refuse to cry in front of her again, certainly not the day before she goes into the arena, so I tell her as little as possible and move on to the business at hand - preparing for her interview. "Did Calpurnia already go over how to act on stage with you already?"

She nods and sits on the purple velvet armchair by the fish tank, primly crossing her legs at the ankles and folding her hands in her lap. Her back is straight and she keeps her eyes lowered demurely. It's obvious that our district chaperone has worked with her but, for once, I don't hate what she's done. Annie is just the right mix of shy young girl and confident young woman. I can work with it because it's what she is and she won't have any trouble matching her words to that.

"What do you remember about watching Caesar Flickerman's interviews with tributes over the last couple years?" I ask her. "Is there anything you've noticed about them?"

She thinks about this for a brief moment and nods. "He always tries to make every tribute sound the best that they can, no matter if they're Careers or from District Twelve."

She's pays attention. It's a good thing. "Exactly. He does it because the audience wants to love the tributes and wants to root for them. It doesn't really matter why he does it, though. It's enough that he does. The trick is to start off with your strength and let him help you build it up."

"But what's my strength?" she says softly, making it clear she's not certain she has one. "I'm not anything special, Finnick. I think everyone knows that."

"Wrong answer." I know it sounds like I'm snapping at her, and maybe I am, but it's true. "Not only is it the wrong answer, but it is the wrong way of thinking. You cannot go into the arena thinking you're nothing special, not if you want to have any chance of coming out. You do want to have a chance of coming out, don't you?"

She looks at me for a long time before she says a word. "Are you glad you came out?"

I can't answer that question. I can't tell a tribute my answer to that question. "This isn't about me, Annie," I say instead, with no doubt in my mind that she's smart enough to figure out what I'm not saying. "You are special if for no other reason, and this is not the only reason, than that you don't think you're special. Do you think there have been any other Career tributes who weren't so cocky that they had no doubt they'd win?"

"But they haven't all won," she says.

I pace behind the matching purple sofa four times and then sit down as close to as I can, as close as Caesar will be to her. "Don't argue with me, Annie. I'm older than you, I won the Hunger Games, and I learned how to mentor from Mags. I know what I'm talking about."

She leans back in the chair, not really away from me - she looks more like she's relaxing into a conversation. It's exactly what she needs to do on stage. "I may not be the best there is but as long as I am the best I can be the end, I can live with that. Or die with that."

She ignored me and answered the question Caesar will ask, and she answered it just how I want her to answer it because it's how she should answer it. I can't change who she is, and I wouldn't want to, so I have to make her the best she can be.

Annie Cresta is a girl who needs to be able to live with herself in the end. Whether or not that means she can, or should, emerge from the arena as a victor of the Hunger Games doesn't matter a damn bit. If she's going to die, which there's a good chance she is, and if I have anything to say about, she will do it with dignity and the knowledge that she died as herself.

We spend the next few hours practicing her answers.

It's all business until Calpurnia calls us for dinner.

After Muscida and I eat with Annie and Reef, we leave them to go to bed while we go to a Mentor Meeting. There aren't any new mentors this year so no one really needs to be instructed about how to use sponsor funds, track tributes, or send parachutes. It means the meeting will be just another gathering of mentors. I'd rather sleep.

Chaff grabs my elbow as soon as I step off the elevator and steers me into a corner of the room. "You know Plutarch Heavensbee, Pretty Boy? He was the Head Gamemaker during your Games then he retired. Apparently he decided he would never do as good as he did for you."

Good for me, yeah. No. I plaster on a smile somewhere between my Capitol smile and my among-victors smile and shake the pale man's hand. "No, I don't think we've met in person. Not even on my Victory Tour, did we?"

He shakes his head and lets go of my hand. "Unfortunately, we did not. President Snow decided that since I'd already given my resignation that there wasn't a reason for me to be there. It's good to meet you now, Finnick."

"How's Mags?" Haymitch asks, appearing beside Chaff with a wine glass in his hand.

"She can't speak and her left side is partially paralyzed but the doctors say there's no reason to think she won't survive or that she'll have another one soon."

"I still have connections in the government," Plutarch says, "if she's stable enough, would you like me to see if I can arrange for her to be moved back to Four as soon as possible?"

Mags would like to be at home, I know that. But I can't exist in the Capitol without her, and she knows that. It doesn't seem too selfish to keep her close to me. "No, thank you. I think the doctors want to keep a close eye on her until the Games are over."

If he, or Chaff and Haymitch, notice my stretching of the truth none of them say a word.

And none of them say a word when I make my excuses and leave the meeting early.

I still want to sleep and it's exactly what I do when I reach my room. I've still got my shoes on and my mouth tastes like the spicy fish stew I ate for dinner but I'm asleep seconds after I mash my face into my pillow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

I'm awake sometime during the middle of the night. I don't think I woke up for any particular reason. I'm just done sleeping. I haven't slept through the night without the aid of some drug or another since my name was pulled from the Reaping Ball.

With the knowledge that further attempts at sleep will only result in nightmares, I roll off the bed and into the bathroom. A shower and a teeth cleaning make me feel marginally better but not enough to risk sleep again. I doubt I'll really sleep until I get back to Four. After all, the tributes go into the arena in the morning.

Thinking to get myself a glass of sweet tea, I make my way to the common area of our floor. That there's a light on in Annie's room distracts my momentarily from my goal, but she might like some sweet tea too so I get two glasses and then I go to her room.

She accepts the glass with shaking hands and watches me as I sit on the chair by the window in her room. "Why are you here?" she asks as she sips it carefully. "Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"Mentors have a sense that their tributes aren't sleeping," I lie openly. "The good ones come check on restless tributes."

The way she rolls her eyes tells me she's not buying it. Good for her.

"How did I do in my interview?" she asks.

I feel guilty because I wasn't there to talk to her much afterward. I'd wanted to be, but President Snow required my presence and I reasoned it was best for Annie that I let Muscida and Calpurnia take care of her. She was brilliant during her interview. She did more than just tell the Capitol she didn't know that she was special enough to win their favor, much less the Games. In fact, she hardly did that at all. Instead, after Caesar asked her about Mags' illness and how losing her as a mentor affected things, Annie talked about how much Mags meant to the people of District Four and how worried she was that we might lose someone so important to us.

To her, I think she was saying just what she meant to say. With any luck, at least a few citizens of the Capitol will hear that she's saying how much _her_ loss would cost District Four. That might be reaching too far, though. Maybe it's safer to say that they might find something new and some worth caring about. Or maybe that's just my own pipe dream.

"Finnick?"

I didn't answer her question and I feel horrible again. "You were perfect, Annie," I tell her honestly. "I don't think it could have been any better."

She smiles a little at that. "I just wanted to be me to the end."

"And do you feel like you were?"

She bites her lip and nods. "Yes, I was. I didn't stop being me just because they stuck me in a fancy dress and painted my skin. It was strange to be myself in that shell, but I was."

I lean forward and hold out my glass, tapping to against hers. "Cheers for that, Annie. Don't lose you who are, not for a moment. Do you know what happens if you do?"

Her teeth crunch against an ice cube and she nods again. "They win."

I confirm her answer by putting a finger over my lips. I lean back in my chair and swallow the last of my tea, leaving only half melted ice cubes in the bottom. "Will you die with any regrets, Annie Cresta, if you do die in that arena?" It was probably the wrong thing to ask a tribute but Annie isn't like any other tribute I've mentored or known. Maybe she'll forgive my asking. Maybe she'll understand.

"Of course," she says, not hesitating at all and giving me hope that she does understand. "I'll regret that I don't get to be old and gray, or fall in love, or live. But that's not the question you meant to ask me, is it?"

I stare at her because I don't have a good answer. I don't know what question she thinks I meant to ask her.

"You meant to ask if there's anything I wish I'd done before my name came out of the Reaping Bowl," she elaborates when I don't say anything. "Specific things. Not vague, obvious answers the Capitol would love about leaving my family and never having children."

I don't know if I was going to ask that question but I want to hear her answer. "If you're so sure I was going to ask, what's your answer?"

For being so bold a moment ago, she blushes furiously now. "It's stupid. Never mind. I should just go to sleep before they come to get me ready."

I watch, sort of frozen, as she plunks her glass on the table and flops face-first onto the bed. And then I force myself to my feet and move to sit on the edge of her bed. "No, Annie, don't. Don't hide now. You've only got so long to get what you want. So take it. If it can still be taken, take it. If I can get it for you tonight, I'll do it. Just tell me if there's something you wish you'd had or done. Please, Annie."

She turns her head just enough to fix her green eyes on me, and then she sits up. Before I know it, before I can stop it, she cups her right hand to the side of my face and kisses me. I must not react how she expects because she pulls away quickly and buries her face in her pillow again. "I've never been kissed," she mumbles into the pillow. "I wish I'd been kissed."

I know, although I'm not entirely sure how I know, that she isn't telling me this because I'm the _most kissable darling of the Capitol_ - a title Caesar Flickerman officially gave me three months ago. She's telling me this because she's a girl who wants to be kissed.

Now I have to figure out a way to kiss her without having her feel like it's a pity kiss - which it will be, if I'm entirely honest about it - or like I have no faith in her survival - and I have little.

I pull back when I feel myself start to slip into my Capitol persona. I can't kiss her like that. But I've never kissed a woman who wasn't a citizen of the Capitol. I'm not sure I know how to do this.

"You don't have to just sit there pitying me," she mutters, her voice still muffled by the pillow. "You can go back to bed."

"You've never been kissed?" I ask, ignoring her words.

"No."

"Have you ever kissed anyone?"

She turns her head a little to the side. "Is there a difference?"

"Mm-hmm. Being kissed means the other person makes the first move and kissing someone means you make the first move." I don't know if I'm making sense but I'm drawing her out of her pillow and that's enough.

"Oh. No, I guess I haven't then."

I put my hand on her shoulder and make her turn over to face me. "That's not true, Annie, because you just kissed me."

She scrunches her face into a frown and wiggles around until she's twisted her red hair into a rope over her shoulder. "That hardly counts, Finnick. You've kissed and been kissed by so many women."

How do I tell her the truth without telling her everything? I don't want to hurt her. So I tell her a version of the truth. "I've never kissed or been kissed by a woman who doesn't live in the Capitol." It shocks her, I can see that, so I lean down close to her and hope any bugs in the room don't pick up my words. "Those women don't mean anything to me. I'm a toy to them and they're something I have to endure. You kissing me, being the first girl to kiss me just because she was desperate to kiss someone, that's completely different. Don't you see that?"

She stares at me for a long minute before she nods once. And then she whispers three words. "Now kiss _me_."

We don't stop until long after we should have stopped.

She tells me before she finally falls asleep that she's happy to know she won't die without being kissed or without having lost her virginity.

There are probably rules about mentors having sex with their tributes but as I watch her sleep peacefully for what might be the last time, I realize I don't care about the rules.

I don't care about any of them. I just want to be free. I want Annie and every other young person in Panem to be free. That's what I care about.


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

Annie Cresta emerges from the arena as a victor two and a half weeks later.

By _emerges_, I mean that one of the crew of the hovercraft descends the ladder and physically attaches her to it and holds on to her until they reach the craft. Once on board, that crewmember and a medical staffer carry her to an examination table and prop her up on it, strapping her in place so her limp body doesn't slide off and onto the floor. She stares vacantly at the ceiling while people poke at her and speak to her.

The people of Panem don't get to see footage of this.

The mentors do get to see footage of this.

I don't want to see footage this.

Muscida puts her arm around my waist and sighs as we watch the scene play out on the giant screen in the Mentoring Center. I think she sees what I see - that there is nothing there. Annie is gone.

Some of the other mentors stop to congratulate us, and I breathe a sigh of relief when Muscida talks to them and I don't have to. I'm more relieved when it's Haymitch, Chaff, Seeder, and Cecelia who approach me.

The women both kiss my cheeks and slip out of the room without a word but Haymitch and Chaff hang back and each offer me a flask.

I take a drink from both, wincing after each and handing the flasks back to their rightful owners.

"I can't say we have much experience with this whole mentoring a victor thing," Chaff offers as Haymitch empties his flask, "but you know where to find us if you need anything."

I shake their hands and thank them before I turn back to Muscida. "What do we do now?"

"Go to the hospital," she says grimly. "They'll take her there and we, or rather you as her mentor of record, have to sign for any treatment she needs to be given that isn't absolutely necessary to keep her alive. We'll check on Mags too."

Calpurnia arrives then and ushers us into a waiting car. She's not bubbling with excitement and I know it's because she has no idea how she can manipulate the situation which is obviously so dire. The three of us are silent as we arrive at the hospital. The driver parks at the public entrance, making sure we'll be seen by the horde of press and public waiting outside the doors. I plaster on my Capitol smile, try to convince myself to be convincing enough that they believe I'm thrilled that Annie won, and get out of the car.

My name is shouted more times than I can comprehend and I babble to the closest cameras how happy I am that I was able to mentor Annie to victory. I assure them all she'll be just fine in no time, a lie I tell with alarming ease, and push through them into the hospital.

Muscida is standing by the bank of elevators with Head Gamemaker Truscott. "Only one of us can see Annie and it should probably be you as her mentor. I'll go, if you want. Or I'll go see Mags."

I want to see Mags. I want to hide from Annie. I want to go home.

Mags will be upset if I go see her first. Annie deserves better than me hiding from her. I can't go home.

"I'll go to Annie," I say finally, realizing Gamemaker Truscott is giving me an odd look. "Tell Mags I'll see her soon?"

She gives me a hug and promises that she will.

Truscott, whose wife I have slept with twice, and I get on an elevator together and he jabs the button for the top floor. "From what I've been told, she's doing fairly well. They didn't need to do any life-saving things other than to hook her up to fluids to ease her dehydration."

He's avoiding the most important thing - that her mind is obviously broken - but I know he doesn't care about anything that doesn't make her less pretty for the cameras so I keep my irritation to myself. All he can do is hurt her more than he already has. And I hope I can get him distracted so I can see her on my own.

Distracting him is not hard. Three neon green haired nurses immediately vie for his attention and the get it. I take the opportunity to approach a purple haired doctor who treated me after my Games and after one brutal encounter with the Undersecretary of Food Distribution. Sexta Finch is one of two people in the Capitol I actually like.

"I'm in charge of her, Finnick," she says in a whisper as soon as she sees me, "and I have to tell you it's bad. I'm not supposed to say that to you or to anyone not authorized by Truscott but you need to know it. Come on."

I follow her into a room. I don't understand why there aren't any guards outside the door, not until I see that Annie is strapped to the bed so fully that she couldn't move if she tried. My eyes lock on the bloody bandages on her wrists and the mostly dried blood on her face. "She was in water," I say, not sure why I'm whispering. "She wasn't scratched."

"She did it to herself." She adjusts one of the tubes going into Annie's arm and turns to face me. "We didn't have her restrained while we examined her fully and she started clawing at herself before we could stop her. She's sedated now but I have to bring her out of that soon to be evaluated by President Snow, or whoever he sends in his place, and Gamemaker Truscott."

I fight a shiver at the memory of President Snow looming over my bed just after I won. I find a little strength in the fact that I remember Mags being there, holding my hand the entire time. I don't know if Annie will even realize I'm there but I need to be for her what Mags was for me. "Can I stay, Sexta?"

"Of course. I'll be in the room the entire time too."

With that settled, she adjusts another line going into Annie.

With Sexta's nod of permission, I release the restraints on her right arm and link my fingers with hers. Then I watch as her green eyes, once so bright and full of life, flicker open to reveal an emptiness that scares me. I think I'd rather see terror in her eyes.

"It's the sedation," Sexta says softly, "the emptiness is from the sedation. The terror will come soon. Hold on to her, talk to her. If she was comfortable around you before, she'll be comfortable around you now."

I use my foot to hook a stool and pull it close to her bed. She will be able to look at me if she doesn't want to look at whoever comes. "Annie, listen to my voice. You're safe now. There's nothing to be afraid of now." I don't know if she's listening to me, or even just hearing me, but I need to say it. "I know it seems like there is everything to be afraid of but I promise that you are safe right now where you are. I hope you can hear me, Annie. I hope you know I would never lie to you."

She squeezes my hand but she doesn't let go so whatever she's thinking, it isn't that she's afraid of me. She turns her head and blinks over and over and over. "Finnick," she whispers through clenched teeth. "Finnick?"

"I'm here, Annie." I lift her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles, not daring to do anything more when I don't know who might be watching. "I'm here."

Tears drip down the sides of her faces as she looks at me, finally focusing - and I see the terror in her eyes. "Don't leave me," she rasps. "Please."

I squeeze her hand again. "I won't leave, Annie. I won't leave you."

"Still mentoring even after the Games are over. Excellent work, Mr. Odair." President Snow stands at the foot of Annie's bed and Gamemaker Truscott is behind him. He nods at me. "They tell me her mind is damaged. She will still do her interview with Mr. Flickerman on schedule and she will be crowned by me on schedule. It will be up to you whether she remains here for treatment or return to District Four. The Victory Tour will be on schedule, so you may want to consider that."

It takes me a minute to realize he's waiting for my answer. It's an easy answer to give.

"I'm taking her home. Mags too. I'll take them home to District Four."

He nods, seeming to have expected that. "Good luck to you, then." And then he disappears again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Six**

Annie and I are already on the train when Muscida and a Capitol attendant help Mags into the car. Annie is sitting on a chair by the window, her knees drawn up to her chest and her chin resting on her knees. How a grown person can fold herself into such a small package, I don't know. She hasn't spoken since she answered a few of Caesar's questions in a hollow, detached voice during her interview. And now she just sits and stares out the window.

I think I'd rather hear her scream and see her fight instead of retreating into herself.

Mags can walk with the help of a cane. She's unsteady, to be sure, but it gives me hope that's she standing and slowly making her way toward me. She even waves me off when I stand to help her. Once she's settled in the chair beside me, she glances at Annie - still curled on the chair across from me. "How bad?" she says, even those two words broken and forced.

"I don't know, Mags, how bad off are you?" I ask because I don't want to talk about Annie quite like that when she's sitting close enough to hear, even though I don't think she can.

She nods once and winks at me, and I get the feeling I passed her test. "Been better," she tells me. "Been worse."

I can't help but be shocked by that. "You've been worse? When?"

She taps her chest with her right hand and speaks in a halting voice, missing some words. "Old, boy. Worse before your parents even born."

To my shock, her words make Annie laugh.

Mags puts her hand over mine and squeezes my fingers. "Be alright, boy," she sighs - and I know she means herself and Annie. At least I hope that's what she means. I'll believe her no matter what she says. I have to.

Once the train leaves the Capitol station, Muscida comes and tells us that the attendants have set dinner out in the dining car.

Mags pushes herself to her feet with me holding one elbow. She stops before we take a step and holds out her other arm to Annie. "Help an old woman, girl?"

I shouldn't be surprised that Annie reacts to her again, even unfolding herself and getting to her feet. She tentatively takes Mags' other arm and we walk slowly to the dining car while Muscida follows us with Mags' cane. I can't help but wonder if she'll be able to get Annie to eat - something I've failed spectacularly at since she was released to me for the interview and the Crowning Ceremony.

My mentor gives me a nudge into a chair on one side of the table and lets Annie take her to the other side. Annie ends up across from me and Muscida sits beside me. Mags seems to be struggling with her silverware and I move to help her but Muscida puts her hand on my arm. "No, wait," she whispers ever so softly in my ear. "I saw her in the hospital and she can do this. I think she's acting."

So I wait and watch. And I don't believe a thing I'm seeing.

Annie takes her own knife and fork and cuts up the fish on Mags' plate. When the old woman's hand shakes, and I think it's more faked than real, the newly crowned Hunger Games victor scoops up a bit of fish and holds it to Mags' mouth. "She won't choke, will she?" she murmurs in Muscida's general direction but not really to her.

"No, she won't," she replies, sounding as shocked as I am. "The physical therapists made sure of that. She just has trouble speaking and a little trouble with coordination but she can swallow food."

Her words don't get a verbal reaction. Annie simply goes back to feeding Mags the baked fish and Mags gives Muscida and I look we both know means we should eat our own dinners. So we do, and when I look up again, Mags is coaxing Annie to eat by refusing another bite until the younger girl takes one.

A part of me feels ridiculous relief that Annie's eating and Mags is here to take care of her. The other part of me feels ashamed that the old woman recovering from a stroke can, and maybe has to, take better care of the teenage girl than I can.

I force myself to eat the fish so Mags won't have to use the strength to yell at me but I refuse dessert. I feel almost as sick right now as I have after more sexual weeks in the Capitol.

After the plates are cleared by the attendants it's clear that Mags is fading so Muscida takes her to her room and leaves me with Annie, who wastes no time in returning to the chair by the window she'd claimed as soon as we got on the train. I close my eyes and walk, eyes still closed, after her while a random, probably alarming thought occurs to me - I wish there weren't force fields to prevent me from accidentally falling off the train as it speeds over a bridge.

"You don't have to follow me."

I jump when she speaks, luckily just before I walk into a table that's bolted to the floor.

"You don't have to follow me," she repeats in a dull voice. "I won't hurt myself. I think they locked up all the sharp things."

It's alarming that she's thought of that and I told her so. "You did enough damage with your fingernails in the hospital," I remind her before she can protest.

But she still protests, waving her fingers in my direction. "My manicure before the Crowning seemed to consider of leaving me with no fingernails to speak of."

I slump into the round back chair across from her and cross my arms over my chest. "Well, you did gouge the one girl's arm when she tried to put eye shadow on you so you probably can't really blame them."

She shrugs and pulls her knees to her chest again. "You still don't have to follow me."

"I'm not following you. I want to sit in this chair, so I'm going to sit here."

Seeming to accept that, she wraps her thin arms more tightly around her legs and rest her chin on her knees. And then she's silent again.

I don't know if she sleeps, but I do. I sleep a fitful sleep of half-finished dreams and an aching body.

Annie's still there, still in the same position, when Muscida squeezes my shoulder to wake me. "It's morning," she whispers, "why don't you go get some sleep before we get home? I'll watch her."

The offer is too good to refuse, so I don't.

And twenty minutes later I wake abruptly to the shrillest, most terrified screams I've heard in my life. It takes me a minute to realize it isn't a dream, someone on the train is screaming as if he or she is being tortured. And that someone is screaming my name.

I'm on my feet before I can think about it and I run into a Capitol attendant in the hallway, one who was clearly sent to get me. "It's Miss Cresta," she says breathlessly. "She's calling for you."

Calling for me might be a bit of an understatement. She's still screaming.

I push the Capitol girl to the other side of the hall and run in the direction of the screams.

Annie is cowering in the corner of the train car where I left her. Her face is deathly pale and streaked with tears. Her short fingernails aren't too short to have been unable to cause bleeding crescent shaped wounds in her arms as she hugs herself. And her voice is hoarse from screaming.

"The stylist brought her clothes," Muscida says, touching my arm gently. "That's all."

The stylist is still standing there, tacky and revealing dress in her arms.

"Out," I tell her. "Get out. I'll dress her to get off the train."

Muscida backs me up and leaves with the stylist.

When we're the only ones left in the car, it takes time but I manage to mostly calm her down. At least the screaming stops. The tears don't and she shakes like a leaf when I get her to her feet. She won't speak, but she seems to trust me well enough.

And when she steps off the train in District Four, she's wearing one of my shirts - an oversized white shirt I bought in District Four from a woman too blind to sew properly anymore but in need of the money - with the sleeves rolled up and Muscida's turquoise tasseled scarf tied around her waist to make it look like a very short dress.

But at least she can walk off on her own. I hope.


	7. Chapter 7

**Seven**

Over the next few days, I discover that Annie is as alone in the world as I am. It bothers me that I never bothered to ask her about her family in the Capitol, but I can't say just why it does. Maybe it's because I can't help but wonder if I could better help her now, or at least have been better prepared, had I known this little fact. The past can't be changed, though, so I can only proceed with the information - provided by the mayor in an entirely accidental way - that her mother and her grandmother had perished in a hurricane a year before she was reaped and that she's worked as weaver and lived at the mayor's house since, having been friends with his daughter.

I get the idea he's not keen on his daughter keeping up that friendship, not with a victor who killed a thirteen year old and then lost her mind on national television. I can only hope his daughter is capable of thinking for herself. I'm not one to talk, though, about keeping friends who don't live in the Victor's Village so I resolve to let the chips fall where they will.

"How worried are we that she's been sitting on the steps, staring at the ocean, all night?"

I jump when Librae says something from behind me. She really should know better than to sneak up on a victor, especially given the fact that she's got two scars from sneaking up on Muscida and her knife. "Who's been sitting where all night?" I ask, even though I have a sneaking suspicion I know the answer to that question.

She jerks her bony thumb toward the house next to mine, a place Mags had decreed would be Annie's house. "New girl. I saw her sitting there before I want to bed and she's sitting there now. Given the storm last night and the fact that she's soaked to the bone, I'd say she was out in the storm."

I don't particularly like Librae. The second oldest of us victors from Four, she's passionately in favor of anything the Capitol does and yet she looks at me with barely veiled disgust even though she knows why I do what I do, even if she doesn't know all of it. Maybe she was Mags' favorite before I came along, I don't know.

What I know right now is that I'm transferring my anger over not having noticed Annie to Librae for having noticed and not done anything.

I push her out of my way and jog across the wet sand to Annie's back steps.

She's not just shivering when I reach her, she's shaking like a brittle leaf about to crumble into a thousand tiny pieces. And she has no idea I'm crouching in front of her.

Needing to get her to focus on me, I put my hands over hers and pry her fingers out of the fists she's got them clenched in. She doesn't fight my manipulations of her body and, once I've got her hands stretched out, she leans forward and wraps her arms around my neck.

To say I'm startled by it would be the understatement of a lifetime. I can't hesitate, though, or I'll lose her to whatever's held on to her mind all night. I wrap my arms around her shaking body and lift her off the steps. It's still cold and she needs to be warm before hypothermia sets in - to survive the Hunger Games only to die because you spent a night out in the cold rain would be injustice at it's finest and most horrible. I don't know just how to take care of her, though, so I do what I've done every time I've felt lost since I won the Games.

I go to Mags.

Librae clearly doesn't approve but she didn't do anything so I'm certainly not asking her for help. I push past her again, carrying her across my yard and up onto Mags' porch. My mentor is sitting at the kitchen table with Ron and Muscida, both of whom jump to their feet when I kick the door open.

Mags looks at me for a long moment before she nods once. "Undress, Muscida. Hot bath, Finnick," she says slowly but firmly.

It takes us another moment to realize she's not telling Muscida to undress and me to take a bath. She wants Annie to be stripped of her soaked clothes by Muscida and for me to get a hot bath ready. It makes sense.

Annie, however, is having none of it and starts screaming like she did when the stylist tried to give her clothes on the train. Only this time she's not cowering in a corner, she's digging her fingernails into my neck and shoulders as she fights me trying to put her down so we can all do what Mags said.

"Maybe you want to do each other's jobs?" Ron suggests just loudly enough to be heard over the screams. "She seems a bit more comfortable with Finnick."

Ron has a knack for underestimating, being underestimated, and understating. I don't think he likes me, given that he's older than me and won the Games after me but I'm still the most popular victor from Four, and I don't particularly like him very often but I'll give credit where it's due. "I've dressed her before," I tell Mags - who is recovering more every day although her speech still lags behind, "I'll do it again."

Seeming relieved, Muscida disappears into the first floor bathroom and I hear the taps turn on. Ron makes an excuse to leave, promising to check on any damage caused by the storms.

I do my best to disentangle Annie's legs from waist, thinking that if I can get her standing on her own two feet it'll be easier to take care of her, even if she is still clawing at me. As long as I keep talking to her, quietly and about the color of the sea that's crashing against the shore outside the window, she doesn't scream and she lets me do what I need to do. She doesn't let go of me on her own, and when I force it she only allows it long enough for me to pull the shirt over her head. I drop her wet clothes on the tiled floor by the oven and tug her toward the bathroom.

"Okay, Finnick?" Mags asks, getting to her feet and using the countertop as a support to walk to the tea kettle. "Can you do this?"

Can I do this? Can I take care of the shivering, naked girl whose got her body pressed against mine as though I might be the only thing in the world she trusts?

No.

"I don't know," I say instead, not wanting to let Mags down.

Leaving the kettle behind, she comes and squeezes my arm. "You can do this," she says with the same firm confidence she had when she said the very same words to me the last time she saw me before I entered the arena. "I know you can. I'm here, if you need me, but you're strong. You can do this."

As if agreeing with Mags, Annie presses her face into the crook of my neck and sighs.

I lean to the side just long enough to kiss Mags' forehead and then I guide Annie to the bathroom.

Clearly a little skittish around the younger woman, Muscida leaves the bathroom with a promise to stay in the hallway in case I need help. Annie doesn't notice so I thank her and step inside.

I worried right after the Games that Annie would be terrified of water, given that she literally had to swim to survive, but a night of sitting out in a rainstorm says otherwise. I also know that she's spent at least two hours every day wading along the shore. So it isn't any problem for me to lower her into the steaming tub full of water.

She keeps holding on to me but her nails aren't embedded in my flesh anymore. And slowly, very slowly, she relaxes back against the side of the tub.

I fold myself onto the floor beside her and let my arm dangle in the water, not caring that the sleeve of my shirt is soaked. Her shivering is stopping and there's a pink replacing the blue in her lips. That's enough for me.

As I watch her close her eyes and relax, I wonder about this girl who they say survived the Hunger Games. I don't know if this is surviving. Then again, I don't know if what I'm doing is surviving. Maybe we've invented a new sort of surviving, maybe we can do it together.

Somehow.

Someway.

Someday.


	8. Chapter 8

**Eight**

Annie shrieks as the gob of thick, sticky mud smacks against her bare leg. It's a good shriek - not terrified, laughing instead as she sprints behind the trunk of a banana tree. "Stop that!" she calls out.

There's no chance of me stopping and I make that clear by throwing another handful of mud at her other leg. "Rub it around."

She makes herself almost thin enough to be completely hidden by the trunk. "No!" she cries out, barely choking back her laughter. "I'm not smearing mud on my legs."

Crouching beside the patch of mud, I scoop more out and smear it on my own legs below the hems of my shorts. "Suit yourself. If you don't mind painful and itchy red bumps the size of clams then don't cover your bare skin in mud. I mind."

I've got her attention and she steps part of the way out from behind the tree. "Where to the bumps come from?"

"Mutt bugs. I don't remember if I ever knew exactly what they're called but my mother used to call them Devil's Spawn when we came out here when I was little." Switching to my other leg, I cover it in mud and stand up. "Before you ask, I didn't tell you to change into long pants because the bugs would still bite you. The only thing that will keep them away is the mud. Sorry."

With obvious reluctance, she emerges finally and smears the mud over her legs. "Why does the mud keep them away? And won't the bugs just go up under my shorts or bite my hands and arms? I don't have to cover my face, do I?"

"You could, if you wanted to - and my mother always said her skin looked better after she had mud on it, but you don't have to. For some reason, the bugs never really go above a person's knee. They don't fly and they don't jump, so they don't even crawl up your leg." I won't say it to her, but the mental image of her with mud smeared all over her face is both amusing and alluring. "Don't forget your feet."

She wrinkles her nose but reaches to scoop up mud for herself and smears it on her feet. "This is really gross, Finnick. I can't believe you're making me do this."

I gesture over the tall grass waving in the wind, and hiding the Devil's Spawn, to the small trees on the other side. "I'm not making you do anything, Annie Cresta. You said you wanted to get strawberry guava to make jam and tea for Mags and I said I knew where you could get fresh strawberry guava. If you don't mind the bites, don't smear the mud."

For my trouble, when my back is turned, I get a handful of mud to the back of my neck. I turn around slowly, careful not to send what seems to be a teasing good time spiraling out of control and do my best to look playfully mad. "You did not just throw mud at my head."

In answer, I get more mud on the front of my shirt. "What are you going to do about it?" she challenges, darting behind the banana tree again when I gather my own ammunition.

It only takes ten minutes for us to cover each other from head to toe in mud. I've got mud in places that would scandalize my Capitol prep team, even though I've still got all my clothes on. And Annie looks just as amusing and alluring covered in mud as I expected she would.

"Guavas," she announces abruptly, using a leave from the tree to wipe the mud from around her eyes. "We're entirely protected from the Devil's Spawn now so we're going to get the strawberry guavas. Mud or no mud."

Never one to argue with a lady, another thing my mother taught me when she took me out into the bush and swamps to collect the fruit and berries she sold to the town people for extra money, I step in front of her and lazily swing my machete to clear a thin path to the trees bearing the fruit she wants. I can sense she's following close behind me but I know she's not frightened. She's giggling too much to be frightened, and it's make me paranoid about whether or not she's laughing at me.

Having reached the trees, I point to the bright red fruit with the tip of the machete. "You brought the bag, didn't you? I'd rather not make nine trips back through the grass."

Rolling her eyes, she drops the burlap bag to the ground beside me and looks at the tree critically. "It's not strong enough to climb and the fruit is too high to reach on foot. We need a ladder."

I'm not going all the way back to the Victor's Village for a ladder. The skeptic in me knows I'd never get Annie back out to the fruit trees. So I do what I did with my mother when I was little, only I take on her role and crouch down. "Get on my shoulders," I instruct Annie. "You'll be able to reach the best guavas from there."

She hesitates, but she does it.

She's light, too light for someone her height and age, and I know it's because she hardly eats anything since she came home to District 4 four months ago. I'll have to work on getting her to eat more. After all, she's a rich victor now and the world is literally hers for the taking.

I spend the next hour and a half walking slowly around the trees while she fills the bag I'm also holding with only the best looking fruits.

When she declares us done, mostly because the bag won't hold any more, she climbs down from my shoulders and insists on carrying the fruit. "My father used to buy fruits and berries from your mother," she says softly as we make our way back through the grass. "I used to come with him. I remember you."

Ignoring the itchiness of the mud drying on my skin, I think back to those days. I remember Annie and her father. He was a tall man with a booming voice who was the captain of one of the bigger ships in the District - and died when his ship went down in a hurricane. Annie was a skinny, shy girl who carried a book with her wherever she went. "What is that you remember about me, then?"

"You were never where your mother expected you to be," she says, sort of spitting the words out as though she's worried she'll lose her nerve otherwise. "She'd say something to you and sigh because you were never there. Where did you go?"

I miss my mother, and I've never talked about her to anyone but Mags, but I answer just the same - even though it hurts. "Usually I went two stalls down the row. Old Lady Rowena always had sugar cubes and I'd trade a piece of fruit for six cubes. Then I'd get, some might say steal, a little milk from Old Man Thaddeus' goat and mix it in a cup with the sugar cubes."

She stops in front of me and turns around. "Why did you mix fresh goat's milk with sugar cubes?"

I shrug, chewing my bottom lip at the memory. "It made a kind of cream. My mother would pour it on whatever fruit we'd have left and we'd have a treat. Maybe that's why she only sighed."

Annie smiles and sort of reaches for me but then pulls her hand back. "I'm sure it is." She shakes her head and turns back around. "Come on. I'm itchy and we need to check on Mags."

I couldn't agree with either thing more.

The best part of it all is the look on Mags' face when we appear on her porch. I know we look like fools but the way her eyes light up seconds before she laughs, the first real laugh I've heard from her in four months, makes me stupidly happy to look like a fool.

She keeps laughing as Annie pretends she isn't covered in mud and explains what she intends to do with the strawberry guavas. I don't know how the girl keeps a straight face because I'm choking on my laughter in a matter of seconds. Only when Mags calms herself enough to say she's very much looking forward to the jam and tea does Annie start to laugh.

I can't hold it in anymore and neither can anyone else.

We laugh until there are tears trailing through the lines of Mags' face and making wet tracks through the dried mud on our faces.

I haven't felt this good in a very, very long time.

I wish I could make the moment last forever.


	9. Chapter 9

**So someone from **Katniss' prep team makes an appearance in this chapter. I hope it works! Please, please, please (with cherries on top!) leave a review if you read this and like it, won't you?

* * *

**Nine**

Before someone sent me a trident in the arena, I fought with a tribute from District 10. He'd herded cattle all his life and was three years old than me and twice my weight. He'd have killed me if he hadn't been distracted by the giant squirrel mutt in the bush. The squirrel mutt tore him to pieces while I scaled a tree like it was the mast of ship but I was in serious pain after the fistfight.

That pain is nothing compared to the pain I feel as Annie fights against me on the train going to District Twelve for the start of her Victory Tour - something Mags and I failed to get her out of and something we regret very much now.

When her nails dig into my neck, and no doubt draw blood, I cup my hands around the back of her head and use my leg to kick her legs out from under her. My hands pillow her head so it doesn't smack against the floor of the dining car and I brace myself above her on my elbows and try to make her lie still. It doesn't work. She comes far too close to kneeing me in the balls for comfort.

"Annie! Annie!" I shout her name as she scrabbles against me, trying to push me off. "Listen to me! What are you going to do? Jump off a moving train? The attendants will get you before you get the door and they'll give a shot. They'll pump you so full of drugs that you'll be a zombie on every stage in every District. Do you want that?"

"I want to go home," she shrieks, clawing at my face for just a second before I get her wrists pinned above her head and let my body drop onto hers. "I just want to go home."

"I know, Annie, I know," I say a little more quietly as she stops fighting a little. I let my face drop so my lips are beside her ear. "I know. But you can't go home. I know you care about your cousin and her children. If you misbehave on this Tour, if you don't do what Mags and I tell you, your cousin and her children will die. I know this, Annie, and I know you don't want it."

She blinks her green eyes at me and goes still. "The kids would die?" she whispers in a hoarse, shaking voice against my ear.

I nod, knowing I am scaring her with the truth.

"What do I do?"

I can feel the tension leave my body as it leaves hers. All I can feel know is pain from where she scratched, hit, and kicked me. "Stop fighting me," I say wearily. "I'm going to help you, Annie. I promised you before that I wouldn't leave you alone and I won't. Trust me, okay?"

She nods once, blinking tears away. "Okay. Don't leave me alone?"

"Never." I start to get up and stop. "If I move, you aren't going to try and jump off the train?"

She shakes her head, murmuring an apology before she rolls out from under me and curls herself into a tiny ball in the corner of the car.

I sit up and take stock of myself. There's blood on my neck, I can feel my nose and eye swelling, I taste blood so I've at least got a split lip, and she did kick me at least once in the part of my anatomy so loved by the women of the Capitol. I glance at Mags, sitting in a chair in the corner opposite Annie. "I wish you were younger."

She clucks her tongue and points toward the door. "Get fixed. I'll watch her."

Of course. The only thing worse than a deranged victor on a Victory Tour would be Finnick Odair looking like he got beat up by the victor. I get to my feet and head to the car used by Annie's prep team. I avoid her stylist, ducking into the bathroom when she walks by, and go in search of Venia. She was on my prep team and she's the only person who lives in the Capitol that I actually, genuinely like. She's different. Better. I asked for and was granted permission to have her take care of my wardrobe and body when I have to be in the Capitol.

And I plan to do whatever I can to have her take care of Annie alone as much as possible on this tour.

"She's not enjoying the train yet?" she asks with a worried look as she ushers me into her room. "Sit down. Do you think you have any broken bones? Were there weapons involved?"

She knows what questions to ask. She asks them after half my dates.

I sit on her bed and strip off my shirt. "No, she's not. Nothing's broken - just bruised. No weapons. Just fingers, fists, knees, and feet. She finally got good at hand-to-hand combat."

Venia sighs and reaches into a compartment in the wall for a handful of icepacks. "Since you said she used knees, I'll let you put these where they need to be. I'll use cold healing cream for anything more visible."

I put the icepacks in my pants while she gets to work on the things that are bleeding. We've done this before and I don't want to think of how many times we'll do it again.

"I've been meaning to talk to you," she says as she works. "Well, I was going to talk to you alone at some point on the Tour. I've been assigned to a different District for the Games. I'm still allowed to be your aide on your trips to the Capitol so long but I have to work with a different team during the Games."

I flex my aching jaw, trying not to show how much this bothers me. "What District?"

"Twelve," she says, not seeming as disappointed as everyone else in the Capitol would be.

"You'll do good for them," I tell her. "And as long as he's got enough to drink, Haymitch is a really good guy."

She smiles and dabs something on my lip. "That's what I've heard. Do you think Annie will be okay?"

"Will be? Is? Was?" It's dangerous, what I'm saying, but I doubt they've got Venia's room bugged and I know she'd never tell. "I have no idea. I guess we'll see."

She nods in agreement. "Is there anything I could do to make it easier for her?"

I wrack my brain and try to think of something. "Animals," I say finally, remember Annie's sweet fascination last week over a newly hatched bale of turtles on the beach. "Baby animals and fluffy animals. If you've got any stories about them, tell the stories while you work on her."

"Done and done," she says, stepping back from me and declaring the stories and my reconstruction done. "I've got plenty of stories about that. Trixus and Cat are a little afraid of her so I'll do most of the work myself."

I kiss her cheek and let her hug me. "Thanks, Venia. I was going to ask you that."

She taps her tattooed temple and then taps mine. "Great minds think alike. Now you'd better get back before she notices you're gone."

I take the advice and head back to the dining car. To my surprise, Mags has coaxed Annie out of her ball and she's sitting at the table eating tiny pieces of District Four bread. Her eyes go wide when she sees me. "Did I do that?"

I wave it off and sink down on a chair across from her. I consider myself lucky she doesn't seem to have noticed the icepacks that are still in my pants. Mags tells me she did with a pointed nod that I try to ignore. "I've been worse," I tell Annie. "Feeling better?"

She sniffs and nods. "I talked to Mags."

Wishing I had Haymitch's flask handy, I settle for a class of tea instead and swallow half of it. "Talking to Mags always makes me feel better too."

Mags fans herself with her spoon, acting like we're fawning over her. It makes Annie giggle. Annie's giggle makes me smile.

Mags doesn't even have to talk to make me feel better.

Two hours later Annie has been remarkably willing to let Venia and I dress her in warm gray clothes appropriate for the District Twelve Harvest Festival that is always incorporated into the Victory Tour. She's shaking too much to hold the notecards Calpurnia wrote the speech on, but no one will mind if I stand beside her and hold them - I hope.

Haymitch is there to greet us when we get off the train. He warns us that the celebration will not be raucous but I didn't expect it would be.

The citizens stood patient and quiet, though, while Annie struggles to read the cards I hold for her.

The idle thought that passes through my mind as I look out at the crowd was that gathered is that there must've been an accident in the coal mines recently. There are too many women with sunken eyes and skinny, starving children staring blankly at us. Not enough men in the crowd at all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Just wanted to **give a very, very special thank you to _**Odestalovebaby**_ who has reviewed seven of the nine chapters posted in the sweetest of ways and accounts for all but one of the reviews this story has gotten. Sometimes it feels like I'm writing into a void but then I remember that one reader does not a void make so this chapter (this story, really) is hereby dedicated to _**Odestalovebaby**_!

* * *

**Ten**

They cancel Annie's Victory Tour when she gets too close to a giant wood chipper on a tour of District Seven. I know she only lost her balance because she hadn't eaten or slept properly in a week but she'd come off as unstable enough that someone higher up than me or Mags decides she tried to kill herself and they send her home. I thank that higher power for small mercies.

So she turned toward home with Mags.

She doesn't understand why I stayed at the train station in Seven but she was too exhausted or maybe too terrified to ask questions.

And I continued on without her, giving her apologies to the people in Districts One through Six and assuring them of how much their support means to her. But that's all just for show. The only destination I was ever meant for was the Capitol.

In a way, I'm glad Annie isn't in the Capitol with me.

Venia sits beside me in the car and offers a reassuring smile. I'm not sure how much she knows about what I do, but it's comforting to have her beside me. "They told me to wait through this appointment," she tells me, "because you've got somewhere to be afterward."

Two appointments in one night. This is worse than I expected.

I don't say anything. I should, but I don't. No matter how much or how little she knows, I just know I can be some form of who I really am around her. So I stare out the window at the snow covered city and wait until the car stops in front of a turquoise glass covered building. I take a deep breath and force myself into my alternate personality.

All I have are instructions that the doorman will take me to the apartment I'm meant to be at, and he takes me to the penthouse before disappearing back onto the elevator.

I knock on the only door on the floor and hold my breath.

The door opens to reveal a man I've met just once before. "Ah, Finnick. I hope your trip went splendidly. I am so sorry Miss Cresta was unable to continue her Victory Tour. Do give her my sympathies and wishes for a speedy recovery from her ailments, won't you?"

I blink, nodding because it's taking my brain a moment to catch up. Plutarch Heavensbee bought time with me? It doesn't make sense.

He gestures for me to come inside. "Make yourself at home, Finnick. May I get you a drink?"

"Water," I say before I can stop myself - and I would have because I try not to eat or drink anything unless absolutely necessary during my appointments.

He leaves me alone in the room for a moment and comes back with a glass of ice water, then gestures for me to follow him again.

I do, because that's what I do on my appointments. I follow wherever I'm led.

This time, I'm led to a rooftop garden. And Plutarch locks the door behind him.

"Relax, Finnick," he says as he walks around the green space, reaching behind plants to flick switches and press buttons. "I won't be requiring your usual services tonight. Not unless Haymitch is keen to join us and I don't think he is. What do you say, Haymitch?"

Haymitch Abernathy steps out from behind an overgrown flowering bush of some sort and shakes his head. "Pretty Boy, maybe. Not a fat, old fool like you, Heavensbee." He tips his head to me and offers his flask. "Want a warm up since we're meeting out in the freezing cold?"

I shake my head, clutching my water glass too tightly.

Plutarch looks at me and goes back to the door he just locked. "Why don't you ease him in to the conversation, Haymitch? I'll give you a little time. Knock three times when you need me to come up."

I gape at Haymitch as the former Gamemaker disappears back into the penthouse.

"You're gonna get frostbite on your tongue," he says bluntly, taking me by the elbow and leading me to a stone bench mostly free from snow. "You don't mind a break in the monotony, do you?"

"Am I supposed to have sex with him? Am I supposed to have sex with you?" The words are out before I can stop them.

"God, no. Neither of us. That's not why you're here, Pretty Boy."

I set the glass down on the stone path beneath my feet because my fingers feel like they're freezing to the glass and because I've got a growing urge to smash it in his face and see if there's a force-field around this roof like there is at the Training Center. "Why am I here, Haymitch?"

"It's safe to talk, he turned off the bugs." To make his point, he gestures toward the places Plutarch flicked switches and pushed buttons. "Do you trust me, Pretty Boy?"

_If I'm not there and you need to trust someone, trust Haymitch Abernathy. Trust him with your life, with the life of the person you care most for._

I always listen to what Mags tells me. "Yes," I say, nodding for good measure. "Yes, I trust you."

He chuckles and offers me the flask again, smiling when I accept it. "Tell Mags I said thanks. Now, on to the business at hand before Plutarch gets impatient. Mags told me to trust you too. So I'm going to ask you how you'd feel about being part of bringing around to all this."

"All this?" I repeat stupidly. "All what?"

"The Hunger Games, the absolute rule of Coriolanus Snow, district full of people starving while a chosen few vomit so they can eat more, suspicious 'accidents'... all of _this_."

If I'd had an appointment before this, I'd be certain someone slipped me some chemical to slow down my mind. I didn't, though, so there's just the simple fact that it doesn't make sense. "Are you talking about a rebellion against President Snow and the Capitol?"

"Huh, you've got a brain in there after all, Pretty Boy." He takes the flask back and tucks it into his jacket. "I am talking about a rebellion. Plutarch is running things here in the Capitol, I'm running things with the victors, and District Thirteen is preparing the military power to be the army."

Maybe there was something in the air vents in the car. "District Thirteen was destroyed."

It's the opening he needs and he tells me more than I can fully understand just then. But in the end, I have one clear thought on my mind. "What can I do?"

His smile is grim but he smiles just the same. "It's dangerous, Pretty Boy. If we get uncovered or this doesn't work, we don't survive."

I repeat my question.

He nods. "Remember last Games before Mags had her stroke? You told me how that surgically enhanced twit whose married to the guy who designs the hovercrafts told you Snow had ordered new weapons systems installed? Well, we need to know stuff like that. So, I have to ask, do you have any plans to quit doing what it is that you do here in the Capitol?"

"I don't make my own plans," I say evenly, wondering how he knows all the details - because it's clear that he does.

Seeming to accept that, he continues. "Alright then, what you can do is use your charm to get more information like that from your highly placed lady friends. When you hear something that might be useful militarily or to get people slowly but surely riled in the districts, pass it along to me. That's all."

"That's all?"

"That's all," he repeats. "We keep everybody on a need-to-know basis. You get further in if you want but I figured you've got enough to deal with on your own. You wouldn't need to talk to anyone but me about it."

That makes me feel a little better. Plutarch is a Gamemaker and I can't ever fully forgive that. "Alright," I tell him. "I'll do it. Maybe this new goal will make what I do a little easier."

He takes out the flask again and gives it to me. "I was thinking it might. But if you change your mind at any point, tell me and you'll be out. Do this for yourself, Finnick, and not for any other reason. You understand me?"

I think of Mags. I think of Annie. I know I'm doing it for myself. I need them. So by doing it for them, I'm doing it for myself. "I understand."


	11. Chapter 11

**Eleven**

The first thing I see when I return to District Four is the blur of Annie Cresta flinging herself into my arms. She's pale and has dark circles under her eyes. And I think she's lost even more weight since we were separated just two weeks ago. I sort of wish she hadn't come to greet me. I'm still wearing Capitol clothes and I left immediately after my last appointment so I'm sure I'm still covered in perfumes and lipstick.

It's embarrassing.

"Come on," Annie says, tugging on my hand and pulling me away from the train.

It strikes me then that she is in the train station. Between coming home from her Games and leaving for the Victory Tour, I don't think she went into town at all. And now she's greeted me on her own at the train station? Apparently she's been hard at work getting better without me.

"Where are we going?" I ask as I let her guide me through a throng of people so used to my coming and going that all they really do is elbow me in the ribs to get by.

She doesn't say, she only keeps walking. And she walks until we reach one of the oldest docks in District Four. There's a rickety, half rotted old staircase that leads from the main dock down to the beach before - a beach that almost no one goes to because it's so dangerous to get there and get back up - and she heads straight for the steps.

I hesitate just a little. My mother always told me that there were evil spirits under the dock and that they want nothing more than to swallow up unsuspecting people who wander uninvited into their domain. It's silly that I still remember it, but I do. And I'm not sure I want to risk it.

"You're scared?" She seems startled, surprised, and confused by this realization. "You don't believe all those old stories about the evil spirits, do you?"

I shake my head, but I don't move a muscle. "Of course I don't believe them."

Annie goes down two steps, as far as she can go without letting go of me. She turns and blinks at me. "You don't believe them? You're sure?"

I nod once and try to step forward but my stomach knots uneasily.

She steps back up and stands in front of me, cupping her hands on either side of my face. "They're just stories, Finnick, I promise." Her voice is calm and soothing, and she isn't laughing at me at all. It's nice to experience. "Trust me?"

I do trust her and I show it by taking a step to her side, showing her I'll follow her anywhere.

"I come down here all the time," she says as we go down the steps lowly but steadily. "I have since I was a little girl. I always thought you must have."

I shake my head and grip her hand more tightly than I probably should. "The way my mother described the spirits... I was sure they were huge, ugly monsters that would rise out of the sea and swallow me whole. I don't know why she didn't want me down here so badly, but she didn't."

She stops on the last step, on the most rotted slat of wood, and lets me stay one step above her. "I asked my father about the stories once. He told me they were ancient stories and that neither he nor his father knew of anyone who'd ever disappeared down here so, according to him, it only stood to reason that the stories were a lie."

I wish it were that simple.

Annie shakes her head, telling me with no words that I actually said that thought out loud. "Trust me, Finnick," she murmurs, "but we can go back to the Victor's Village if you want."

"I don't." I can say that with certainty. "I don't want to go back to the Victor's Village."

She nods once and steps off the step and into the sand, still holding my hand. "You look tired. I know a way you can relax and feel better. Come with me?"

I'm following her already but I know I could turn around if I wanted to. I don't. "Don't leave me?"

She smiles briefly and then turns her back to me. "I'll stay with you until you tell me to go away."

That's all the reassurance I need and I follow her across sand strewn with driftwood and rotting seaweed. Just when I'm about to give it up for lost, and declare myself thoroughly lost with no way of running from the monsters that haunted my childhood and haunt me still, Annie comes to a stop in front of a circle of black rocks. There's a steaming pool of water in the circle, and I think that's what she's smiling about.

"I know it's probably not as good as the tubs in the Capitol," she says, nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot, "but it's really relaxing. It's hot springs. You should sit in it for awhile."

I hate the tubs in the Capitol. I like this, and I haven't even got in yet. "Sit with me?"

She blushes, I assume from my bluntness, but nods. "I said I'd stay until you told me to go."

Awkwardly, we both strip to our underclothes. Neither of us is naked and I like it that way. Maybe it's part of the reason I hate the tubs in the Capitol. She takes my hand and we step into the hot springs. Even the rocks are hot, and they feel so good against my aching, tired body when I submerge myself up to my neck.

Annie giggles at the happy noise that escapes from me. "Are there monsters waiting to eat us up?"

I close my eyes and lean back against the edge of the pool. "Maybe. I don't even care."

She giggles again and I feel her shift and settle beside me. "That's good enough for me."

We fall into silence for the next few minutes. All I can hear are the bubbles in the water and the tide going out from the beach beside us.

A thought suddenly occurs to me and I sit up, opening my eyes and tapping her shoulder. "What do you know, Annie? What do you know about where I was and what I was doing?" She knows more than that I finished her Victory Tour. That much is obvious to me.

She stares at the bubbling water, refusing to look me in the eye.

A part of me desperately hopes she knows everything, because then I'll have nothing to hide. Another part of me is terrified that she might know everything, because then she'll hide from me. I hide my face in my hands and speak through my fingers. "Please, Annie, please tell me what Mags told you. I'm not mad that she told you something. I could never be mad at her or at you. I just need to know what you see when you look at me."

I feel her move more than I see her move. Then I feel her bump her shoulder against mine. "You want to know what I see when I look at you?" she whispers so softly I have to strain to hear her over the water all around us. "Okay. I'll tell you what I see when I look at you. You're Finnick. You like to laugh, but you're afraid to laugh. You want to love, but you're afraid to love. You want to live, but you're afraid to live. You don't know how not be scared, even though you hate to be scared. That's what I see."

It doesn't tell me if Mags told her about my Capitol girlfriends, but it tells me enough. I close my eyes and exhale slowly. "I thought I was a better actor than that."

She bumps me again. "I'm not your audience."

She has a point there and I open my eyes to look. "Do I have any secrets from you?"

"Of course. I don't know what your favorite color is." She laughs when I start in surprise. "I will never tell anyone your secrets, Finnick, not any more than you would tell anyone mine. I will listen to whatever you want to tell me whenever you want to tell me. Just like you would for me. All that matters is that you don't give up on yourself. That's all."

Apparently the tables have turned for the moment. Annie's acting like my mentor. More than that, she's acting like my friend. I don't think there's anything more I could ask for.


End file.
